52 ideas
| 5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Any good philosophy will need to offer wisdom about who we are as well as about how we ought to be. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 14) | |
| A reaction: This sop should be accepted gratefully by fans of bioethics, who seem inclined to think that describing 'how we are' is all that needs to be said. Maybe the key wisdom lies in the relationship between the 'is' and the 'ought' of human nature. |
| 5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The inability of science to provide ethical wisdom is partly responsible for our resistance to the scientific image. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 14) | |
| A reaction: This seems right. A.J. Ayer, for example, declared "I believe in science", and his account of ethics was vacuously nihilistic. A description of the mechanisms of moral life is not the same as ethical wisdom. |
| 12747 | Monads are not extended, but have a kind of situation in extension [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Even if monads are not extended, they nonetheless have a certain kind of situation in extension. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8 | |
| A reaction: This is the kind of metaphysical mess you get into if you start from the wrong premisses (in this case, a dualism of the spiritual and the material). Later (Garber p.359) he says they are situated because they 'preside' over a mass. |
| 12748 | Only monads are substances, and bodies are collections of them [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: A monad alone is a substance; a body is substances not a substance. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.01.21), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8 | |
| A reaction: So how many monads in a drop of urine, as Voltaire bluntly wondered. I take the Cartesian dualism (without interaction) that ran through Leibniz's career to be the source of most of his metaphysical problems. In late career it went badly wrong. |
| 13184 | The division of nature into matter makes distinct appearances, and that presupposes substances [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If there were no divisions of matter in nature, there would be no things that are different; just the mere possibility of things. It is the actual division into masses that really produces things that appear distinct, which presupposes simple substances. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705) | |
| A reaction: This shows Leibniz to be a straightforward realist about the physical world, and certainly not an 'idealist', despite the mind-like character of monads. I take this to be an argument for reality from best explanation, which is all that's available. |
| 13188 | The only indications of reality are agreement among phenomena, and their agreement with necessities [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We don't have, nor should we hope for, any mark of reality in phenomena, but the fact that they agree with one another and with eternal truths. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1706.01.19) | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere he says that divisions in appearance imply divisions in matter. Now he adds two further arguments in favour of realism, but admits that nothing conclusive is available. Quite right. |
| 12752 | Only unities have any reality [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is no reality in anything except the reality of unities. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.06.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 9 | |
| A reaction: This seems to leave indeterminate stuff like air and water with no reality, as nicely discussed by Henry Laycock. Do we just force unities on the world because that is the only way our minds can cope with it? |
| 13187 | In actual things nothing is indefinite [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In actual things nothing is indefinite. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1706.01.19) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the germ of the controversial modern view of Williamson, that vagueness is entirely epistemic, and that the facts of nature are entirely definite. Thus there is a tallest short giraffe, which I find a bit hard to grasp. |
| 19383 | A man's distant wife dying is a real change in him [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: No one can become a widower in India because of the death of his wife in Europe unless a real change occurs in him. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], GP ii 240), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Nominalist' | |
| A reaction: This is Leibniz heroically denying so-called 'Cambridge Change'. It is hard to see how a widower is changed if he has not yet heard the bad news. But his situation in life has changed. Compare eudaimonia, which you can lose without realising it. |
| 13179 | A complete monad is a substance with primitive active and passive power [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: What I take to be the indivisible or complete monad is the substance endowed with primitive power, active and passive, like the 'I' or something similar. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
| A reaction: I love powers, so I really like this quotation. By this date even Garber thinks that he has more or less arrived at his mature view of monads. I used to think monads were mad, but I now think he is closing in on the right answer - sort of. |
| 12749 | Derivate forces are in phenomena, but primitive forces are in the internal strivings of substances [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I relegate derivative forces to the phenomena, but I think that it is clear that primitive forces can be nothing other than the internal strivings of simple substances. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1705.01), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8 | |
| A reaction: I like 'internal strivings', which sounds to me like the Will to Power (Idea 7140). There seems to be an epistemological challenge in trying to disentangle the derivative forces from the primitive ones. |
| 12722 | Thought terminates in force, rather than extension [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I believe that our thought is completed and terminated more in the notion of the dynamic [i.e. force] than in that of extension. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], G II 170), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4 | |
| A reaction: Presenting this as the place where 'our thought' is 'terminated' seems to place it as mainly having a role in explanation, rather than in speculative metaphysics. |
| 19379 | The law of the series, which determines future states of a substance, is what individuates it [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: That there should be a persistent law of the series, which involves the future states of that which we conceive to be the same, is exactly what I say constitutes it as the same substance. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 4 'Applying' | |
| A reaction: The 'law of the series' is a bit dubious, but it is reasonable to say that a substance is individuated by its coherent progress of change over time. Disjointed change would imply an absence of substance. The law of the series is called 'primitive force'. |
| 13182 | Changeable accidents are modifications of unchanging essences [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Everything accidental or changeable ought to be a modification of something essential or perpetual. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.06.30) | |
| A reaction: Clear evidence that Leibniz is very much a traditional Aristotelian essentialist, and not as modal logicians tend to characterise him, as a super-essentialist who thinks all properties are essential. They are necessary for identity, but that's different. |
| 13178 | Things in different locations are different because they 'express' those locations [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Things that differ in place must express their place, that is, they must express the things surrounding, and thus they must be distinguished not only by place, that is, not by an extrinsic denomination alone, as is commonly thought. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
| A reaction: This is an unusual view, which has some attractions, as it enables the relations of a thing to individuate it, while maintaining that this is a real difference in character. |
| 19411 | In nature there aren't even two identical straight lines, so no two bodies are alike [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In nature any straight line you may take is individually different from any other straight line you may find. Accordingly, it cannot come about that two bodies are perfectly equal and alike. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz was very good at persuasive examples! It remains unclear, though, why he takes the Identity of Indiscernibles to be a necessary truth, when he seems to have only observed it from experience. This is counter to his other principles. |
| 19412 | If two bodies only seem to differ in their position, those different environments will matter [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If two bodies differ only in their position, their individual relations to the environment must be taken into account, so that more is involved in their distinguishability than just position. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
| A reaction: This seems to allow that two bodies could be intrinsically type-identical (though differing in extrinsic features), which is contrary to his normal view. I suppose a different location in the gravitational field will make an intrinsic difference. |
| 19410 | Scientific truths are supported by mutual agreement, as well as agreement with the phenomena [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Among the most powerful indications of truth belongs the fact that scientific propositions agree with one another as well as with phenomena. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24/04.03) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be the case not only with science, but with all other truths. Leibniz is particularly keen on the interconnectedness of things, so coherence justification suits him especially well. But surely all scientists embrace this idea? |
| 5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Explanation does not entail prediction. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 73n) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the inverse of this is also true, as we might be able to predict through pure induction, without knowing why something happened. We predict that smoking is likely to cause cancer. Complex things might be explicable but unpredictable. |
| 5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: In the seventeenth century the dominant idea that causation is collisionlike made mental causation almost impossible to envision. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.136) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This makes Descartes' interaction theory look rather bold, and Leibniz's and Malebranche's rejection of it understandable. Personally I still think of causation as collisionlike, except that the collisions are of very very tiny objects. |
| 5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: It is easy to explain why certain brain events are uniquely experienced by you subjectively: only you are properly hooked up to your own nervous system to have your own experiences. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 87) | |
| A reaction: This is in reply to Nagel's oft quoted claim that mind can only be understood as "what it is like to be" that mind. I agree with Flanagan, and it is nice illustration of how philosophers can confuse themselves with high-sounding questions. |
| 13183 | Primitive forces are internal strivings of substances, acting according to their internal laws [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Primitive forces can be nothing but the internal strivings [tendentia] of simple substances, striving by means of which they pass from perception to perception in accordance with a certain law of their nature. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705) | |
| A reaction: 'Perception' sounds a bit crazy, but he usually qualifies that sort of remark by saying that it is an 'analogy' with conscious willing souls. The 'internal strivings of substances' is a nice phrase for the basic powers in nature where explanations stop. |
| 5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: We only have a sense of our self as continuous, but not as exactly the same. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.178) | |
| A reaction: Russell said this too, and it seems to me to be right. Personal identity is far too imprecise for me to assert that I remember my ten-year-old self as being identical to me now. Only physical objects like teddy bears can pass that test. |
| 5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The self is an abstraction from the story of a person's life that isolates and magnifies the experiences, traits and aspirations that are assigned importance. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.240) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am inclined to see personal identity as the central controller of brain activity, the aspect of the biological machine which keeps all the mental events focused on what matters, which is health, safety and happiness. |
| 5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: It is a bad mistake to think we are born with a self; the self develops, and acquiring it requires living in the world. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.260) | |
| A reaction: I think this is wrong. He is mistaking a complex cultural concept of the self as the subject for autobiography etc. for the basic biological self which even small animals must have if their brains are to serve any useful purpose in their lives. |
| 5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: According to Buddhism, the idea of a permanent, constant self is an illusion, and a morally dangerous one. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.161) | |
| A reaction: We are familiar with the idea that it might be an illusion, but I am unconvinced by 'morally dangerous'. If you drop both free will and personal identity, I can't see any sort of focus for moral life left, but I am willing to be convinced. |
| 5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The standard view of free will is that I have something like complete control over what I do. A stronger view (not widely held) is that I also have complete control over what I think and what I feel. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 60n) | |
| A reaction: To claim free control of feelings looks optimistic, but it does look as if we can decide to think about something, such as a philosophical problem. Deciding what to say comes somewhere between thought and action. |
| 5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Free will is said to give us self-control, self-expression, individuality, reasons-sensitivity, rational deliberation, rational accountability, moral accountability, the capacity to do otherwise, unpredictability, and political freedom. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.104) | |
| A reaction: Nice list. His obvious challenge is to either say we can live happily without some of these things, or else show how we can have them without 'free will'. Personally I agree with Flanagan that we meet the challenge. |
| 5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Most people believe we have free will, and that this consists in the ability to circumvent natural law. The trouble is that the only device ever philosophically invented that can do this sort of job is an incorporeal soul or mind. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly right. We currently have a western world full of people who have rejected dualism, but still cling on to free will, because they think morality depends on it. I think morality depends on personal identity, but not on free will. |
| 5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: It is unimaginable to me that, despite the feeling that we control what we do, such a strong conception of ourselves as unmoved movers would have been added to our self-image unless we had first conceived of God along these lines. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.107) | |
| A reaction: I think this is right, though there are signs in fifth century Greece of contradictory evidence. The 'unmoved mover' seems unformulated before Plato's 'Laws' (idea 1423), but there is an implied belief in free will a hundred years earlier. |
| 19409 | Soul represents body, but soul remains unchanged, while body continuously changes [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The essence of the soul is to represent bodies. ...The soul and the idea of the body do not signify the same thing. For the soul remains one and the same, while the idea of the body perpetually changes as the body itself changes. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24/04.03) | |
| A reaction: This seems to rest on the Cartesian Ego, as the essence of mind which does not change. And yet elsewhere he describes the Ego as a mere abstraction from introspected mental life. |
| 5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: I would say that that my consciousness doesn't seem either physical or non-physical, ..but the belief that the mind is non-physical partly took hold because that fits well with thinking of human agents as free. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.102) | |
| A reaction: I think this is right. I personally think there is no such thing as free will, and that belief in it has been the single greatest delusion amongst philosophers (and others) for the last two thousand years. Dualism has now gone, and free will is next. |
| 5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Behaviourism was notorious in its heyday for having nothing to say about mental causation. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.141) | |
| A reaction: This is a bit unfair, as Ryle (idea 2622, following Spinoza, 4862) was one of the first to point out the paradox of 'double causation'. You have to be a mentalist to worry about mental causation, and eliminativists aren't bothered. |
| 5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Although everyone thinks cars and bodies obey the principles of causation, no one thinks it a deficiency that we don't know strict laws of automechanics or anatomy. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 65) | |
| A reaction: This attacks Davidson's claim that there are no strict psycho-physical laws, and I agree with Flanagan. Huge dreams of free will and human dignity are being pinned on the flimsy point that we have no strict laws here. But brains are very complicated. |
| 5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: One may be committed to the truth of physicalism without being committed to the claim that the essence of an experience is captured fully by a description of its neural realiser. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 90) | |
| A reaction: This is a reply to the Leibniz Mill question (idea 2109) about what is missing from a materialist view. Flanagan's point is that just as the essence of a panorama is the view from the hill, so the essence of consciousness requires you to be that brain. |
| 7876 | Even if we identify pain with neural events, we can't explain why those neurons cause that feeling [Levine, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Materialists identify pain with the firing of nociceptive-specific neurons in the parietal cortex. Even so, Levine argues, we will still lack any explanation of why nociceptive-specific neurons yield pain. | |
| From: report of Joseph Levine (Purple Haze [2001]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 5.1 | |
| A reaction: [Proposed by Levine in 1983] I don't think we need to instantly go dualist when faced with this, but we may all eventually have to concede a bit of mysterianism. The explanation may be holistic (and hence hopelessly complex). |
| 7877 | Only phenomenal states have an explanatory gap; water is fully explained by H2O [Levine, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Levine says the explanatory gap is peculiar to phenomenal states. Once water has been identified with H2O, or temperature with mean kinetic energy, we do not continue to ask why H2O yields water, or why mean kinetic energy yields temperature. | |
| From: report of Joseph Levine (Purple Haze [2001]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 5.1 | |
| A reaction: Everything is mysterious if you think about if for long enough. What about a representational gap? Why do those neurons represent that tree (if the neurons aren't tree-shaped)? To understand qualia, we must understand the whole brain, I suspect. |
| 7878 | Materialism won't explain phenomenal properties, because the latter aren't seen in causal roles [Papineau on Levine] |
| Full Idea: We cannot give materialist explanations of why brain yields phenomenal properties because phenomenal concepts are not associated with descriptions of causal roles in the same way as pre-theoretical terms in other areas of science. | |
| From: comment on Joseph Levine (Purple Haze [2001]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 5.1 | |
| A reaction: I think Papineau has part of the answer, and I certainly like his notion of Conceptual Dualism, but if qualia are physical, there must be a physical account of how they acquire their properties. I think the whole brain needs to be understood first. |
| 5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: One can question the idea that emotions are non-rational, fickle and flighty; on the contrary, emotions normally seem to be very apt. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 16) | |
| A reaction: This is the modern view of emotion which is emerging from neuroscience, which is greatly superior to traditional views, apart from Aristotle, who felt that wisdom and virtue arose precisely when emotions were apt for the situation. |
| 11873 | Our notions may be formed from concepts, but concepts are formed from things [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: You assert that the notion of substance is formed from concepts, and not from things. But are not concepts themselves formed from things? | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.06.23), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 5.7 | |
| A reaction: A nice remark, which is true even of highly abstruse, abstract or fanciful concepts. You are still left with the question of how far away from reality you have moved when you construct things from your reality-based concepts. |
| 13186 | Universals are just abstractions by concealing some of the circumstances [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In forming universals the soul only abstracts certain circumstances by concealing innumerable others. ..A spherical body complete in all respects is nowhere in nature; the soul forms such a notion by concealing aberrations. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705) | |
| A reaction: This is Leibniz's affirmation of traditional 'abstraction by ignoring', which everyone seems to have believed in before Frege, and which I personally think is simply correct, even though it is deeply unfashionable and I keep it to myself. |
| 5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: There are two main pictures of the good person: there is the 'good character', and there is the 'principled actor'. ..The first picture is non-intellectualist, and the second is intellectualist. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.145) | |
| A reaction: The second ideal elevates the principle itself above the actor who carries it out. Presumably consistency is a virtue, so a good character will at least pay some attention to principles. A good magistrate comes out the same in both views. |
| 5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.301n) | |
| A reaction: I take cognitivism to be (strictly) the view that morals are knowable in principle. Our intellects might not be up to the task (and so we might have to ask the gods what is right). There is also the possibility that morals might be known by intuition. |
| 5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Ethics is the normative science that studies the objective conditions that lead to flourishing of persons. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 17) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice slogan for the virtue theory account of the nature of ethics. I think it is the view with which I agree. I am intrigued that he has smuggled the word 'science' in, which is a nice challenge to conventional views of science. |
| 13185 | Even if extension is impenetrable, this still offers no explanation for motion and its laws [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Even if we grant impenetrability is added to extension, nothing complete is brought about, nothing from which a reason for motion, and especially the laws of motion, can be given. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705) | |
| A reaction: When it comes to the reasons for the so-called 'laws of nature', scientists give up, because they've only got mathematical descriptions, whereas the philosopher won't give up (even though, embarassingly, the evidence is running a bit thin). |
| 13177 | An entelechy is a law of the series of its event within some entity [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I recognize a primitive entelechy in the active force found in motion, something analogous to the soul, whose nature consists in a certain law of the same series of changes. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24) | |
| A reaction: This is his 'law-of-the-series', which is a speculative attempt to pin down the character of the active essence of things which gives rise to activity. The law of such activity is within the things themselves, as scientific essentialists claim. |
| 13093 | The only permanence in things, constituting their substance, is a law of continuity [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is permanent in things except the law itself, which involves a continuous succession ...The fact that a certain law persists ...is the very fact that constitutes the same substance. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle and Leibniz are the very clear ancestors of modern scientific essentialism. I've left out a few inconvenient bits, about containing 'the whole universe', and containing all 'future states'. For Leibniz, laws are entirely rooted in things. |
| 13096 | The force behind motion is like a soul, with its own laws of continual change [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I recognise, in the active force which exerts itself through motion, the primitive entelechy or in a word, something analogous to the soul, whose nature consists in a certain perpetual law of the same series of changes through which it runs unhindered. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.3 | |
| A reaction: This is a hugely metaphysical account of force, contrasting with Newton's largely mathematical account. He very often says that force is 'analogous' to the soul, rather than that it actually is a soul. He never quite believes that monads are real minds. |
| 13180 | Space is the order of coexisting possibles [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Extension is the order of coexisting possibles. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
| A reaction: [In his next letter he uses the word 'space' instead of 'extension'] This is a rather startling different and modal definition of space. Cf Idea 13181. |
| 13181 | Time is the order of inconsistent possibilities [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Time is the order of inconsistent possibilities. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 13180. This sounds wonderfully bold and interesting, but I can't make much sense of it. One might say it is 'an' order for such things, but 'the' order is weird. |
| 5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of a cycle of rebirths and reincarnations that are normally required before one achieve nirvana was only proposed in the eighth century CE, and then spread like wildfire among Hindus and, to a lesser extent, among Buddhists. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.166n) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Plato had proposed it in the fourth century BCE. Presumably Hindus had always been dualists, and then suddenly saw and exciting possibility that followed from it. The doctrine strikes me as (to put it mildly) implausible. |
| 5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The idea of the soul could be easily trashed if science does not countenance essences, but science does countenance essences in the form of what are known as 'natural kinds' (such as water, salt and gold). | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.181) | |
| A reaction: The existence of any essences at all does indeed make the existence of a soul naturally possible, but scientific natural kinds are usually postulated on a basis of chemical stability. Animals, for example, are no longer usually classified that way. |